14 DAY TRIAL // On October 16, the United Kingdom’s Home Office will decide if NASA hacker Garry McKinnon will be extradited to the United States. However, according to the country’s Liberal Democrats, the current extradition treaty favors the US.
Last year, a report made by Scott Baker revealed that the Extradition Act was not biased. The conclusion came in spite of the fact that much more UK citizens have been extradited compared to Americans.
The new review, commissioned by Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, shows that the treaty does not favor McKinnon at all, The Guardian reports.
“With that conclusion I respectfully disagree,” Sir Menzies Campbell, the one who made the new review, said about the one published by Baker last year.
“To put the matter as simply as I can, one may have a 'suspicion' that someone has committed a crime, but that is a different and lower standard than being satisfied that it is 'probable' that a crime was committed by that person.”
Campbell believes that the British standard should be raised to the American one to ensure that no one is favored.
“If the present British government is to fulfil its duty to protect the rights of its citizens at home and abroad and at the same time meet its treaty obligations, such a change is both necessary and possible, not least to restore public confidence in Britain in the process of extradition between the United States and the United Kingdom,” he added.
Home Secretary Theresa May has yet to respond to this new report which only adds to the pressure to refuse to extradite the hacker.
If he is extradited to the US and if American courts find him guilty, McKinnon’s search for UFOs in NASA systems might land him in jail for the next 60 years.